Your Sunday Food for Thought ahead of schedule.

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“A good tree cannot bear bad fruit.”

 

Introduction: Recently my sons told me separately but almost in stereo the same things. “When I was young, I use to resist your wisdom and counsel, but as the years have passed I was proven wrong. What helped me was to hear your unconditional love and the fact that there was nothing there for you but our wellbeing.”

 

THE GOOD TREES OF THE GARDEN ARE NOT GOOD TREES BY THEIR OWN CHOICE BUT BY ELECTION OF THE GARDNER. 

If the tree is good, “Know that a good tree cannot bear bad fruit.”
This letter is intended to remove false fears from a believer and it seeks to encourage the follower of Jesus to be bold in his testimony. Either you are a child of God or you are not. Once a child of God you are a child of God for ever. If of God, then you are a good tree.

 

Circumstances may change but the nature of the tree cannot change.
Circumstances might reveal a person but it does not make a person.
You are what you are and not necessarily what you do.

A small folly does not define you neither does one stroke of geniuses.

David the king was a man after the Lord’s own heart and he committed adultery and murder but he never stop being the man after the heart of God.

Father Abraham was the friend of God, but committed adultery with Hagar and lied to preserve his life, but he remained the friend of God and the father of our faith.

Moses was the chosen leader of the people of God and he committed murder and disobeyed God but never stopped being the Law Giver from God.

Peter denied Jesus three times until the rooster crowed but in his heart Peter never left Jesus.

An act of disobedience is like any other sin where a man “falls” in a moment of weakness or fear; but never “Falling in temptation” is a bad fruit of a believer. Only believers fall; unbelievers are in a permanent fallen estate. You have to have claimed some distance upwards from the ground in order to fall.    

It is the practice of sin as a way of life that is known as the “bad fruit.”
“A good tree cannot bear bad fruit.” A believer does not practice sin.

 

In the visible body of Christ you will detect sin in the life of the believer, “do not be fast in the draw and quick in the trigger of judgment.”

If you already know that your fellow believer is not a goat but a sheep like you, you must know that sin in the life of a believer is there for you only, “TO FORGIVE AS GOD IN JESUS HAS FORGIVEN YOU.”
Freely you have received and freely you must give.

Do yourself a favor, and forgive your fellow believer because you are together members of the one body. To not forgive is a self-inflicted wound that will hinder your prayer life.

As the saying goes, “You will never be more like Jesus than when you forgive and are able to pray from your heart the strong prayer of Jesus, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.”

By the way, if you are of Jesus, then you are a good tree and you cannot but bear good fruit; in other words, “You can not but forgive.” 
“It is in you genes.”

“You are the Acorn of God who has not fallen far from the oak tree.”
Let us praise together our Lord for it is impossible to bear bad fruit and give thanks to our Lord Jesus who has changed our nature from wild grapes into good grapes designed to remind in Jesus and bear much fruit as his witnesses.

We are the vines and Jesus is the branch.

Gerry Gutierrez.

 

As is the case of Jehovah God, we are to forgive after his pattern and example. The appropriation of our forgiveness from the offending party is also under the pattern of the sinner before God that is by repentance one accepts the free gift of forgiveness.

If there is no repentance, then there is no freedom from guilt. If your salvation and the salvation of others is of great concern to you, then you must be a good tree. Bad trees do not care for self or others in regard to salvation. Hunger and thirst is only of those who are alive or want to remain alive. Dead people do not have hunger or thirst.

 

Pictures are of the "Bronaries" as they call themselves, "Brother - missionaries" Nathaniel and Caleb